Cinefantastique Online

It seems like only the other day I was writing about the release of a box set dedicated to the horror films of Val Lewton - come to think of it, it was the other day -Janurary 30, in fact (you can check by clicking here). Now comes news that several of these titles are on a slate of planned remakes. That means that classic films like I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and THE BODY SNATCHER could soon be suffering the same indignity inflicted upon CAT PEOPLE (1942), which was turned into an uber-schlocky misogynistic gore fest by Paul Shrader in 1982.

Oh, god in heaven, please make them stop!

I don’t think all remakes are bad, but given what happened with CAT PEOPLE. I can’t say I’m optimistic. The Val Lewton approach to horror (emphasizing suggestion over shock) is today out of step with today’s more visceral style, and I suspect that any remakes will not stay true to the originals but try to update the material to appeal to the torture porn crowd.

If someone really wanted to do justice to Lewton’s approach, they would make new movies using his stylistic devices. But the sad truth is that, RKO (the company that owns the remake rights) is little more than a hollow shell; they have almost no resources besides the rights (even the films themselves belong to Ted Turner). So the only way RKO can stay (or rather get back into) the movie-making game is to leverage these assets anyway they can, even if that means selling out to Twisted Pictures, the company behind the SAW franchise.

Anyway, from Variety:

Days after signing an interim agreement with the Writers Guild, RKO has launched Roseblood Movie Co., a subsidiary that RKO topper Ted Hartley said will remake eight classic horror films churned out by Val Lewton when he headed RKO’s low-budget horror unit in the 1940s.

The slate includes “Lady Scarface,” which will be written by Tony Puryear; “While the City Sleeps,” which will be scripted by Shin Shimosawa and Jim Morris; “The Monkey’s Paw,” which will be scripted by Todd Farmer; and “The Seventh Victim,” which doesn’t yet have a writer.

The other films on the initial slate are “Bedlam,” “Body Snatcher,” “Five Came Back” and “I Walked With a Zombie,” titles identified last year (Daily Variety, June 15) when RKO made a co-financing deal on the quartet with Twisted Pictures, the makers of the “Saw” films.

“The launching of the Roseblood Movie Co. was the motivating force behind our making an agreement with the Writers Guild,” Hartley said. “We’ve got other projects at RKO, but we needed to get going on this. The most successful ROI in the movie business comes from scary movies that get wide release and cost under $10 million. We’ve studied it extensively for our stockholders and investors and we saw the opportunity to take the rich Val Lewton library of scary thrillers and create a unique company out of it.”

RKO hopes to start production on the first film this fall, with the others to be made over a twenty-four month period.

One final note: Despite what the Variety article article implies, LADY SCARFACE, WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS, and THE MONKEY’S PAW are not titles in the Val Lewton horror ouevre.